PROJECTS ON THE MOVE

A new status report on suspend and hibernate discusses the workings of, issues with, and future plans for power-saving modes in Linux.

Gigantic pop concerts all over the world, a worried former vice president of the USA, the United Nations Climate Report – a lot of peopleare concerned with protecting our environment, a topic that includes saving power. Many arguments support computer users saving power, including helping the environment, saving money, or simply extending the life of laptop batteries. When it comes to power management, Linux is not generally regarded as a role model. Besides excessive power consumption during normal operations, standby functions don’t always work as their makers intended.

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Nearly all motherboards have a power management feature designed to power down the computer and put it into suspend mode. In real life, this feature does not always work. Linux has a software-based workaround for the dysfunctional suspend.

Klaus Knopper is the creator of Knoppix and co-founder of the LinuxTag expo. He currently works as a teacher, programmer, and consultant. If you have a configuration problem, or if you just want to learn more about how Linux works, send your questions to: klaus@linux-magazine.com